


Don't Stop Me Now

by twinfinite



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Caring siblings, Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Klaus Hargreeves's unfortunate downward spiral, Klaus and Ben share one solitary brain cell origin story, Medical Inaccuracies, Pre-Canon, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sickfic, everyone is just doing the best they can, that nice place in the timeline when they all leave the house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 11:24:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18179975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinfinite/pseuds/twinfinite
Summary: Ben is dead and Klaus is doing Great.





	Don't Stop Me Now

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, I spent time I should have spent studying for a midterm writing some seriously angsty shit for this dang TV show.
> 
> I highly doubt that this is even vaguely medically accurate since I based pretty much everything off of House MD and some quick google searches. I did what I could!!

Klaus did a number of extremely stupid things in the week following Ben’s funeral, but carrying a backpack of cocaine across state lines as a favor to his most recent drug dealer was close to the top of the list. He had never done anything like it before, yet he was both desperately lacking money and in great need of a distraction at the time. He didn’t think twice before saying yes.

He made the drop without a hitch, of course, because no one suspects a seventeen-year-old in a dorky school uniform to be harboring thousands of dollars’ worth of drug paraphernalia. He just got on a bus and acted like it wass business as usual, too stoned and grief-ridden to feel nervous or much of anything else for that matter. No one suspected a thing, and he walked away from the drop with a generous payment: $100 and a three months’ supply of prescription Vicodin.

By seventeen, Klaus had tried more drugs than he could count- weed, molly, acid, shrooms, coke, you name it. Still, weed was the only constant, guaranteed high he’d ever known. The rest surfaced sporadically on weekends, at parties. This beautiful excess of pills was new.

He walked right through the front door of the Hargreeves mansion with his backpack rattling obnoxiously, but no one noticed his entrance. Or maybe they did and said nothing still, he pondered absently. He didn’t know exactly what each of his siblings was doing while locked away in their rooms, but he could guess. Plotting their escape, no doubt.

The atmosphere of the house was changing; they all knew it. Needless to say, their last few missions had been going very poorly, and their father was at last growing hesitant to put them all in the field together. Their splintering teamwork was a growing liability, and his control was slipping. It had been happening at a positively glacial speed at first, but after Ben…

After Ben, it was clearly just a matter of time before someone jumped ship. Voluntarily, this time. Klaus had his bets on Diego. That was, if he himself wasn’t the first to go.

Shoving his newest stack of twenty-dollar bills into his savings box, Klaus estimated another three weeks before he could reasonably leave and not come back. Well, it wouldn’t be reasonable per se, because he had nowhere to go. But that wasn’t much of a deterrent these days. 

Before diving into his stash, Klaus took the time to hide all but one of the bottles in his best, Mom-repellent locations. One in his stuffed unicorn, another wedged behind a brick, some in the floorboards.

Then, at last, it was time to try out his latest score. Not a moment too soon, because he had begun to see a familiar black hoodie out of the corner of his eye. That was not a conversation he felt ready to have. Not now, maybe not ever.

The dealer hadn’t given any instructions on how many to take, so he started with two and squeezed his eyes shut tightly until he could feel sure he was alone, drifting.

 

* * *

 

Over the next few weeks, Klaus really did try to ration the pills. It was challenging, though, because there were just so many of them, they felt endless. They were a constant in his rapidly changing world, a constant that also made the days blur into a dream-like state and softened the various blows of his siblings gearing up to leave.

One day, maybe a Friday, Diego came home with a look of satisfaction that just begged for an interrogation. During dinner, Allison was a ready interrogator. With their father absent, as was becoming steadily more normal, they were free to speak openly.

            “So, where have you been all day?” she demanded.

            “What’s it to you?” Diego pushed back, not ready to give in without a fight. Everything had to be a fight, those days. It was the family sport.

            “Come on, Diego, just tell us,” Luther said flatly. “It can’t be that interesting.”

            Diego grit his teeth.

            “Maybe it’s not very interesting to _you_ , since Dad has you wrapped around his little finger. I, on the other hand, just got my ticket out of this shithole.”

            Klaus blinked. The conversation felt so very far away, and he couldn’t put together the pieces.

            “What do you mean?” Vanya asked quietly.

            “I mean I got my GED today.” Diego looked defiant, pleased.

            Everyone spoke at once.

            “What’s the point of that?” from Luther.

            “Was it hard?” from Vanya.

            “Did Dad let you do that?” from Allison.

            “I’m so proud of you!” from Grace.

Before Diego had a chance to answer any questions, Klaus flew out of his seat.

            “I think congratulations are in order!” he exclaimed, sweeping out of the room and towards their father’s well-stocked liquor cabinet. He rooted around, clinking bottles for show, as though he didn’t know his way around the selection. He returned with the finest bottle of scotch.

            “The bastard doesn’t have any champagne, but we can toast with this, anyway.”

Diego gave him a strange look; there was his usual disapproval, but it was mixed in with a hint of something warmer.

Luther looked ready to reprimand him. Whether it was the stealing or the underage drinking, he wasn’t sure. But he just looked tired, defeated. He said nothing while Klaus poured a generous dosage for everyone.

            “Here’s to Diego and his ability to prove himself minimally qualified for real adult life! Sláinte,” Klaus sung, hoisting a glass. 

Allison, Diego, Vanya looked far away as they sipped their drinks, lost in the thought of possibilities outside their tiny world. Luther, predictably, did not touch his glass.

They sat in brooding silence for what Klaus decided must have been a century before they drifted back into unsteady conversation. Klaus’s mixture of prescription medication and alcohol quickly drowned out the words themselves and left nothing more than mindless humming in his ears. The next time he remembered opening his eyes, it was morning.

 

 

The following day, Klaus was lying in bed contemplating how many pills he should let himself have on that particular afternoon. From downstairs he could hear the sound of Allison and their father.

They were having a screaming match.

Ben’s death emboldened her, Klaus thought. Good for her.

He put his headphones in, took two pills, closed his eyes, and wished for her victory.

              

* * *

 

Slightly more than four weeks after Ben’s funeral, the first snow of the year fell. Klaus woke up to the sight of Ben’s statue covered in a thin layer of white.

He also saw Ben himself standing in his doorway.

            “Klaus,” Ben’s ghost said simply.

Klaus flopped a pillow over his face and groped for his Vicodin bottle, swallowing three dry. He crunched the tablets, nearly choking on the bitter, rancid taste, but when he removed the pillow his doorway was empty again. The house was silent.

            “Sorry Ben.”

He stumbled down the stairs in seek of water to rid himself of the taste in his mouth and ran straight into Vanya.

            “Heeeyy,” he attempted to sound casual but came off sounding guilty. “Aren’t you supposed to be…”

He wasn’t sure where Vanya usually went during the mornings, and he also wasn’t sure what day it was. Either way, she was very rarely around. Seeing her during regular nine to five hours was unusual.

Vanya answered his question by coughing heavily into the crook of her arm.

            “Ah,” he sighed.

            “I feel like shit,” Vanya said miserably. “You should probably disinfect…everywhere. Keep your distance.”

Klaus was many things. Overly interested in self-preservation was not one of them. If anything, this was a perfect distraction.

            “Wanna watch cartoons with me? They’re way more fun when you’re high on cough syrup.”

Neither of them had ever quite experienced a snow day before, but Klaus supposed this was as close as they could come, sitting together on his bed, wrapped in a layer of blankets while watching Tom and Jerry. They popped their respective pills in a sort of sad camaraderie, and Vanya gave him a wistful look. Still, she didn’t raise any questions or complaints, she just let herself drift off to sleep. 

* * *

 

A few days later, Klaus was on the last leg of his supply. He knew that he would need to dip into his escape money soon; literal escape just wasn’t as valuable as the manufactured variety.

Ben’s voice was beginning to creep in when Klaus least expected it.

            “Klaus, could you just—”

            “Stop being –”

            “I know you can—”

What was he supposed to say? Sorry you’re dead? How’s the afterlife? The right words just never seemed to form.

It was a Saturday. Almost noon, he noted. He had little reason to leave his room, these days, but he always managed to make an appearance for the weekly Hargreeves sibling gathering. After having that particular timeslot dedicated to “family fun time” for their entire lives, it was one tradition that somehow had yet to be broken. It was automatic that they meet, even if what they did was just gripe about their father together.

Klaus grabbed for whatever clothes he could find, caring little for what that was. He ended up with jeans and a bathrobe, and he made his way down to the kitchen to meet the rest of the family.

His head was pounding, somehow, underneath the cloud of painkillers.

            “Jesus, Klaus, can’t you put on normal clothes?” Luther said by way of greeting.

            “Good morning to you, too,” he threw back, half-hearted.

            “It’s not exactly the morning anymore, man,” Diego interjected.

Not deeming that worthy of a response, Klaus slumped into a kitchen chair and hoisted his legs haphazardly onto the table. The effort of that movement alone left the room spinning, and he squeezed his eyes closed, willing himself to reorient.

            “Are you good?” Allison’s voice called out.

            “Never better,” he heard himself say. He felt oddly detached, untethered. This was unusual for only being one dose into the day.

            “So basically, you're super stoned,” Diego threw in. Klaus didn’t need to see his face to feel the judgement.

            “Would anyone care to join me? I bet you’d all be way more fun if we got a little weed in you.”

Like clockwork, everyone just rolled their eyes and moved on. Honestly, it was so easy to get them to lay off.

Someone in the room turned the TV on, and they listened to the news in almost companionable silence.

Klaus found the room dark and empty when he finally peeled his eyes open again. He listened to hushed voices in the next room over. The concepts being discussed made little sense to him in his semi-conscious state.

            “…we’re all grieving, you know, it’s no excuse…”

            Luther.

            “…coping…but this is…I think you’d classify this as…”

            Vanya.

            “…take him upstairs…”

            Diego.

            “…does Dad know, or…”

            Allison.

            “…check his room, make him stop…”

            Luther again.

Finally, something clicked, and Klaus realized that he was the subject matter. Unacceptable, he thought, feeling indignant.

Groping around in his bathrobe pocket, he located a pill and popped it into his mouth. He wasn’t convinced that he would get the pill down his dry throat without choking, so he hefted himself out of his chair and reached for an abandoned cup of cold coffee left on the counter. He took a thick gulp. His whole body felt tight and heavy.

He wished that he could escape to his room without passing by his siblings, but the staircase was blocked by the brigade of gossips. Putting on his most confident stride, he breezed past them, refusing to make eye contact. He could feel their eyes follow him as he tumbled up the stairs at the fastest pace he could muster.

            “Klaus!” Allison cried out. “Can you come here for a minute?”

He pretended not to hear.

When he got back to his room, he re-hide the remaining Vicodin bottles before crawling back into bed. From somewhere in the corner of the room he heard Ben’s voice.

            “Go talk to them. This is getting ridiculous.”

Klaus threw his pillow over his head and flung his middle finger out to the empty room before falling back asleep.

 

When Klaus woke up the next morning, he smelled Mom’s full Sunday breakfast. His stomach curled, but he knew he would be expected down. Diego would throttle him if he disrespected their mother’s efforts.

The effort of sitting up made Klaus come close to passing out. When was the last time he’d eaten, he wondered. Maybe it would be best to come down for breakfast, despite how little he actually wanted to put any food into his body. Instinctively, he took a morning dose of pills before gingerly getting to his feet. Good lord, his body was on fire. Was this what withdrawal felt like?

He was fully aware that he looked like complete trash, but he didn’t want any snarky comments. Before going downstairs, he made sure that his eyeliner was fresh and he had wiped most of the sweat away. He even put on plain black pants and a white button down to keep Luther at bay.

In the hallway, he ran into Reginald Hargreeves, a sight that he, quite frankly, had been successfully avoiding for days. His father gave him a once over and clearly hated what he saw.

            “Wipe that nonsense off your face, Number Four,” was his only comment before he stalked back to his office.

For good measure, Klaus went back to his room and added a layer of mascara before slinking back down to the kitchen.

            “You look like shit,” Diego said anyway, through a mouthful of pancakes.

            “Rude,” he responded. Weak, he knew, but it was the best he had. He grabbed for a bowl of grapes and forced himself to pluck off a handful.

            “Do you think Dad will send you on a mission by yourself?” Allison asked Luther. “I already told him I’m not going to go unless he actually starts to pay me.”

            “I wouldn’t mind.” Luther answered. “At least I’d be doing something productive.”

Klaus pretended not to know that at least some of that sentiment was directed at him. He flicked a grape in Luther’s general direction, but it just landed in a sad heap somewhere by the fridge.

Grace placed a fresh cup of coffee on his placemat and Klaus tried to blow on the hot liquid to cool it down. Since when was breathing so hard? He forced out a short cough, trying to clear away the tightness in his chest. He surprised himself with the wet, strangled noise that he produced. He felt his siblings’ eyes directed towards him, startled.

            “What the hell?” Diego questioned.

            Klaus shrugged weakly.

            “Are you okay?” Vanya asked, genuinely concerned. “You sound kinda like I did a couple of days ago.”

            “Think I’d know if that happened,” he retorted, but he had to admit to himself that it would make sense. It would be nice to have an explanation for why he felt like someone was sitting on his chest. Still, he rationalized, he’d be coughing quite a bit more if he had whatever had been laying her down. More likely he was just experiencing some unpleasant side effects.

            “Would you really know, Klaus? When’s the last time you were even sober?”

This came from Ben, which meant that Klaus didn’t have to answer. It was best not to, in fact.

            “You should go to Mom. Or Pogo, even,” Vanya said, eyes hopeful.

Absolutely not. That would end up with his room being ransacked for everything in his stash.

            “She’s right,” said Ben.

            “Nah,” he breathed out. “Just need to lay off the cigarettes for a bit. No need to get your panties all in a twist.”

On that note, he gracefully exited the kitchen before anyone had a chance to get a word in otherwise.

Once safely in his room, he slammed his door shut, spun around, and found himself face to face with Ben.

            “You’re falling apart, Klaus.”

For the first time, Klaus can’t help but answer.

            “Well, what do you expect? You _died_!” Completely spent, he crumpled back down onto his bed in an awkward sitting position. There it was, out in the open.

Ben’s eyes widened, but then he broke out into a slight smile.

            “Yeah, I know. I was there.”

            “It’s not funny, Ben,” Klaus said, but he couldn’t help but twitch a smile at the sarcasm.

            “Does this mean you’re talking to me now?”

            “I shouldn’t be able to. Not even that sober right now.”

            “Well, maybe I just learned how be loud enough that you can’t ignore me.” 

            “You’d probably go away if I took a couple more.”

            “Do you want me to?” Ben looked hurt, and Klaus averted his eyes.

            “I…don’t know. I don’t want you to lecture me, though.”

            “I’m afraid that if I don’t lecture you, you’re going to keep doing stupid things,” Ben said, so sincere that Klaus felt guilt like a dagger in his chest.

            “You know I’ll keep doing stupid things no matter what. It’s nice to talk to you, though.”

There was a knock on his door, suddenly, and Klaus almost fell out of his bed.

            “Klaus?” Vanya called, her voice low and tentative. “Can I come in?”

Ben shot Klaus such an imploring look that he felt utterly incapable of resisting his will.

            “Fine.”

His door opened and Vanya stepped into his room, walking cautiously.

            “Were you talking to someone?” she asked.

            “Did they all send you up here to spy on me?” Klaus asked back, skeptical.

Vanya’s face scrunched with slight frustration, but she persisted. “No, I came here because I wanted to see if you would watch a movie with me.”

            “Oh. Yeah, sure. You pick.”

            “The Fox and the Hound?”

            “Never mind, I’m picking.”

Within minutes, they were settled back into their pseudo-snow day routine, but this time it was Klaus who drifted off to sleep in the middle of the movie. When he woke up next, Vanya was gone. In her place, Grace was knelt over him, about to shove a thermometer into his mouth. Klaus reflexively swatted her hand away.

            “Stop that, silly. Vanya tells me that you’re feeling under the weather,” his mother recited sweetly.

Klaus cast his eyes towards his doorway and saw Vanya there, watching. Allison was standing by her side, and if he had to guess, Diego wasn’t too far away.

Traitor, Klaus mouthed at her, careful that Grace wasn’t able to see.

            “I had to tell Mom,” Vanya said, close to tears. “You weren’t breathing right.”

            “Vanya’s right,” Allison threw in. “Stop being so stubborn, please.”

Feeling defeated and breathless, Klaus sunk back down onto his mattress. His mother’s cold hand rested on his cheek while her other hand griped his arm, keeping him down. On her next attempt, she successfully jammed the thermometer under Klaus’s tongue. He only resisted the urge to spit it out upon seeing Ben’s pleading eyes.

When it finally beeped, Grace looked at it with her typical, unchanging expression. “Diego, dear, can you please come in here?”

Upon her call, Diego was in the room in a heartbeat.

            “Help me take your brother down to the infirmary, please,” Grace commanded, and Diego wordlessly swooped down to clutch Klaus’s other arm.

            Klaus felt himself being hoisted out of his bed, and immediately he began to squirm away. He couldn’t leave his room, not when he wasn’t ready. They would find everything, he was sure.  

            “This is crazy! I don’t feel that bad!”

            “Of course you don’t feel that bad when you’re strung out on something,” Diego said gruffly, tightening his grip. Klaus only fought harder, but the effort was giving him tunnel vision. In a daze, he was half-dragged, half-carried down the stairs and onto the rough exam table in the makeshift infirmary attached to their father’s study.

To Klaus’s dismay, as soon as Diego was shooed away, Reginald Hargreeves strode into the room, his gaze icy. Pogo followed in his wake.

            “What have you taken, Number Four?” his father demanded sharply.

            “N-nothing,” Klaus stammered, feeling pathetic in his weak lie.

            “I am giving you the chance to do this the easy way, rather than waiting on the results of a blood test. Do not waste my time.”

            “Just tell him so he can help you,” Ben advised from somewhere Klaus couldn’t see. His voice was distant, fading.

            “It’s…Vicodin, I think,” he admitted weakly. For Ben’s sake more than his own.  

            “Foolish boy!” Hargreeves spit out. He turned and addressed Pogo. “Given his current state, it seems he’s taken enough to suppress his immune system and mask his symptoms. Take his blood pressure and listen to his chest. Get an x-ray if you have to, and then get him back in working order. Under no circumstances are you to provide him with any substance stronger than baby aspirin.”

With that, he was gone.

Pogo and his mother went to work right away. Klaus hardly noticed their poking and prodding, however, because his only thought was how to escape back to his room. The pills from the morning were rapidly wearing off, and he was left with the full reality of how he was feeling for the first time. His previously vague headache was approaching migraine levels, and yet that paled in comparison to how it felt to take a deep breath.

Listening to the sounds of his own shallow wheeze, he could almost see why Vanya was inclined to rat him out. His breath caught in his throat and, less hindered by prescription medication, he truly coughed. He sounded quite like Vanya had now, only intensified. The experience left him gasping and spent. His mother patted him gently on the head once he steadied, probably just to distract him from Pogo unceremoniously jamming a needle into his arm.

            “Please…please let me go back to my room,” Klaus gasped.

            “Your father would prefer you remain here for the time being,” Pogo responded. “But we will do our best to make you comfortable.”

            If he had the breath, he would have laughed. Instead, he let himself be lifted off of the exam table, guided on either side by Grace and Pogo. Together, they deposited him on the rough cot in the corner of the room, careful to mind the IV line that Klaus hadn’t even noticed being set up. The scenery change was enough to make Klaus feel like passing out.

            Grace propped Klaus up on a thick layer of pillows and wrapped a pale, hospital-quality blanket around his shoulders. She pressed a layer of tissues over his mouth as he coughed vigorously, bringing up a thick layer of phlegm that she mercifully whisked away before he could witness the sight of. She returned with a glass of water that Klaus sipped slowly, still marveling at how quickly he had managed to deteriorate the moment he started coming down.

            “Why don’t you try to sleep, dear?” Grace proposed, eerily neutral to his suffering.

            While the suggestion was certainly a good one, it didn’t feel like an option. The only thing Klaus wanted to do was escape back to his unicorn plushie and guaranteed relief.

            “Can’t,” he said simply.

            “If you promise to rest quietly afterwards, I can let you have some visitors, if you’d like. Your siblings seem quite concerned.”

For once, interacting with his siblings was the lesser of two evils. Considering his only other option was to lay alone in this dimly lit makeshift prison, he welcomed the distraction.

            “Okay.”

            The moment Grace opened the door, Allison, Diego, Vanya, and Luther stumbled in eagerly. They warily crept towards him, moving tentatively as though too much disturbance might upset him.

            “How are you feeling?”

            “Why didn’t you say anything if it was this bad?”

            Allison and Luther spoke at the same time.

            “You need to tell them that you’re coming off of the pills. It could be really dangerous.” Ben interjected, suddenly present again.

            “No point, that would be stupid,” Klaus said, unwisely choosing to respond to the non-corporeal member of the conversation.

            His siblings all recoiled.

            “Should I get Pogo?” Vanya whispered. “I think he’s delirious.”

            “Don’t, Vanya,” Klaus begged, shaking his head feebly.

            “Did they do anything at all to help? He looks worse than before.” Allison said, as though he couldn’t hear.

            “Really? Because I feel awesome,” Klaus said flatly, shivering. He truly felt like he was on death’s door, but he also knew that the cure was only one flight of stairs away. His shifted his focus towards Diego. “Can you help me go to the bathroom?”

Diego squinted down at him before casting a searching look towards the others. They gave him blank, unhelpful looks in response. He sighed.

            “I’ll go get Mom.”

            “No, Diego! Just…that’s embarrassing. Please?” he wheezed out, fighting the urge to waste time with another coughing fit.

Diego exchanged one last glance at Vanya, who shrugged.

            “Gimme your arm, let’s make this quick.”

The brothers hobbled the short walk to the nearest bathroom. Diego dragged the IV behind them, careful that Klaus didn’t trip over it.

The second the bathroom door was shut, Klaus used the last of his energy to turn to face Diego, leaning heavily on the IV stand.

            “Diego, get me out of here.”

            “What? No way, just pee and go back to bed.”

            “No no no no, you can’t let them lock me up in there, you don’t understand. I think Dad just wants to let me die down there. He doesn’t care.”

Klaus had never seen Diego look this scared before, but the part of him that would have empathized seemed to have turned off hours ago.

            “Look, you aren’t making any sense. Just go to the bathroom and I’ll get Mom to help you. She’ll know what to do.”

Klaus hadn’t wanted to resort to this, but in his desperation, anything was fair game.

            “No, you look. They’re trying to kill me. Look how big the needle they put in me is.”

Klaus threw the offending arm directly into Diego’s view, scrambling to unpeel the tape holding it to his flesh.

As predicted, Diego turned deathly white. To his credit, he managed to remain conscious, but he couldn’t hold his ground. He crumpled onto the floor, curling his body away from the sight.

            “Stop it,” he murmured, dazed.

Klaus expertly drew the needle out of his forearm and threw it on the floor beside his brother before flinging the bathroom door open and fleeing towards the stairs. He was distantly aware of his cruelty but unable to pause to consider his moral failings when his goal seemed so close.

His body felt drained of all oxygen, and maybe it was. Regardless, he staggered with all of his remaining power in the direction of his bedroom. He made it halfway up the stairs before intense lightheadedness took over. For a moment, he lay sprawled on the steps and willed himself to start moving again. In this stupor, he found it hard to recall what he had been doing. The sound of footsteps gradually began to overwhelm the ringing in his ears, and he turned his head over his shoulder, expecting to see a furious Diego.

Instead, he realized that he was lying in the angry shadow of his father. Diego was there, but he was hanging back in the periphery.

For once in his Klaus’s life, Reginald Hargreeves seemed to have nothing to say to him. Their eyes met, but rather than plain fury, Klaus was met with a frustrated exhaustion that mirrored his own. Silently, his father plucked him off the stairs with a calculated force and deposited him back into Diego’s waiting arms. Luther popped into view and instinctively jumped in to help with the transfer process.

It wasn’t until Klaus was right back where he started that Reginald addressed him at last.

            “You will be allowed back in your room when I have made entirely sure that it is thoroughly cleaned out. Not a moment sooner. You will receive no visitors, as you seem to have lost that privilege. The next few days may be unpleasant, but I assure you, my intention is not to kill you, Number Four.”

Of course he’d heard, Klaus thought. He felt something sharp on his arm and looked over to see Pogo re-doing his IV. As he felt himself lose consciousness at last, he heard Ben’s voice, somehow louder and clearer than it had been since his death.

            “You’re going to be fine, just let them help you. Please.”

           

 

            It was three days before Klaus was allowed to leave the infirmary, but it didn’t matter very much. The combination of full-blown withdrawal and a nasty chest infection left him entirely incapacitated for the better part of a week. The freedom to languish in his newly dry room was an empty victory; the scenery was different but his activities were still limited to sleeping, coughing, throwing up, and occasionally trying to watch a movie. It was nearly impossible to distinguish which symptoms stemmed from what, and he didn’t have the energy to try.

            His only living visitors, as promised, were Pogo and Grace, and they stayed just long enough to provide food, minimal medication, and supervision. The dead visitors, on the other hand, remained a constant and growing population. New faces would wander in each day, always calling out some sob story or another. Ben was always there, but there were times that his steadying voice got lost in the chaos.

The ban on visitation only lasted for three days as well, but his interactions with his siblings in those days were fleeting, superficial, and downright awkward. Between Diego’s completely justified feelings of betrayal, Luther’s distain for his recent behavior, Allison’s inability to look at him normally, and his own anger towards Vanya, there just didn’t feel like a point in trying anymore.

            Exactly 10 days after his disastrous movie viewing with Vanya, he packed his backpack with a single change of clothes, all the money he had, and a toothbrush. He casually waved goodbye to Diego when he passed him in the hallway but otherwise made no effort to seek out dramatic farewells.

            He had no specific plan for this to be his grand exit, but he soon found himself sitting on a park bench blissfully enjoying his first joint in weeks. The silence was such a powerful thing, he noted, humming to himself.

            “Is this it, then?” Ben asked.

            “It’s a little anticlimactic, but sure, why not?”

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't even going to post this here originally because I wasn't sure if I would even have an audience for this. 
> 
> Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts. I'd appreciate it highly because I'm probably gonna bomb my midterm because of this nonsense. 
> 
> Also, if someone wants to teach me the secrets to AO3 formatting, I'd love that.


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